


Profit Margins

by misura



Category: National Treasure (2004)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4177236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You placed an ad, on-line, for all sorts of complete strangers to - what, exactly?"</p>
<p>"Bring us you treasure maps, and we will find your treasure for you." Riley gestured expansively. "For a modest finder's fee, of course; we do need to eat, after all. Look, it's all on our website."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Profit Margins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gategirl7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gategirl7/gifts).



"An ad," Ben said flatly. His expression did not convey an abundance of enthusiasm.

"Well, yeah." Riley'd thought it a pretty brilliant idea himself. After all, you couldn't really expect life to just keep throwing these sorts of things at you - if you wanted to make a living hunting down treasures with your best friend slash secret-only-by-virtue-of-obliviousness crush, you had to do something for it.

To be precise: you had to tell people about what you were up to.

"You placed an ad, on-line, for all sorts of complete strangers to - what, exactly?"

"Bring us you treasure maps, and we will find your treasure for you." Riley gestured expansively. "For a modest finder's fee, of course; we do need to eat, after all. Look, it's all on our website."

" _Our_ website?"

"I considered making a Facebook page or something, but, you know." Riley shrugged. "Facebook. I did set up a Tumblr, though. We even got a couple of followers already."

 

Ben was a nice guy, really he was - attractive, too, although Riley liked to believe the attraction was mostly between one brilliant mind and another.

And Ben _noticed_ things, _saw_ things nobody Riley'd met before had ever seen, like with that hundred dollar bill and the pyramid and the eye, and fine, okay, maybe having a heap of historical knowledge stuffed in your head helped.

Riley was no slouch - and besides, it wasn't as if using Wikipedia was complicated or anything. Still, he knew he'd never be like Ben (or Abigail, for that matter). He didn't really want to be, either, he supposed; he just wanted to get the jokes, instead of standing around, feeling like an idiot.

 

"Ten dollars and five cents," Ben said. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek that Riley'd have wiped away by now if he'd been a braver man. Friends did that sort of thing for one another, didn't they?

"All right, so it's not like the biggest treasure ever." Riley felt a bit disappointed himself, true.

On the other hand, nobody'd tried to kill or kidnap them this past week. There had been no stealing of national treasures required, no breaking into monumental buildings. No hacking into security feeds, which maybe would have been sort of cool.

There'd just been a bit of puzzle solving, a minor amount of digging and voila. One happy customer.

"And that's _all_ of it?" The aforementioned happy customer eyed both of them suspiciously. "Grandpa said there'd be hundreds of dollars in there. You people aren't trying to swindle an old man or anything, are you?"

"No, sir," Ben said. "I guess that maybe your grandfather simply hasn't been completely honest with you."

"Or maybe someone got to it before we did," Riley added quickly, because he saw the way the wind was blowing here, even if Ben didn't. These were early days yet; one unhappy customer review might very well make or break them, and while, of course, he could erase the review in question from their website, chances were that word would get out all the same.

Better to nip that sort of thing in the bud right away.

"Well now, what are you trying to pull here, huh?"

"Nothing, sir," Ben said, shooting Riley a look. "My colleague is just pointing out that there could be many explanations for the box containing only a modest sum, rather than the larger one you were no doubt hoping for. Believe me when I say we fully share your disappointment."

Riley nodded. "Absolutely."

"You fellows better not think I'm going to pay you a cent for this. In fact, I've got half a mind to call the police, see what they make of this fine mess."

"That's definitely something you should think about for a while before actually doing it, sir," Ben said.

"Yeah," Riley said. "I mean, think of the neighbors."

"Stories like that, they can stick around for a long while." Ben didn't smile, although Riley could tell he wanted to. "What do you say that instead of making a big to-do out of this, we just take this box and bury it again, right where we found it. That way, it'll be as if nothing happened."

"And I suppose I'm just going to tell my favorite granddaughter the same old story about some family treasure, huh?"

"That's an option, sure." Ben shrugged. "In fact, how's this? I'll put an extra ten dollars in, on the condition that you do the same."

"Thirty dollars still isn't much of a treasure now, is it?"

"Better than ten," Riley said.

"Of course, you could put in a bit more - say, a couple of hundreds? I'm sure that'd make a nice surprise," Ben said. "It's entirely up to you, sir."

"I look like some sort of lunatic to you?"

Riley bit his tongue. Between the two of them, Ben was definitely the better diplomat. He even owned a tuxedo.

"Thirty dollars it is, then." Ben pulled out his wallet.

Riley wondered how many people managed to find jobs where you ended up paying your customer instead of the other way around.

Also, he darkly suspected tonight's dinner was going to have to be his treat. Again.

 

"Honestly, I felt kind of sorry for the guy," Ben said. They were back at what Riley had privately started to call their 'lair'. It had looked like a fairly spacious apartment at some point, but nowadays, it looked rather crowded.

Ben owned a serious lot of stuff, a lot of books - and Riley didn't mean eBooks.

"Well, not all family secrets can be about legendary treasures, I guess." Riley considered bringing up the not-getting-shot-at thing, but decided against it. "Did you really have to give him ten bucks, though?"

Ben shrugged and reached for another slice of pizza. "Just think of his granddaughter."

"Yeah," Riley said. "You believe she's going to be whooping for joy at digging up thirty dollars?"

"Maybe she'll put in another couple of dollars of her own."

Riley snorted. "Isn't the idea that we _find_ treasures? You make it sound like it's our job to create them or something."

"It was ten dollars," Ben said. "Are we seriously going to have an argument over ten dollars?"

Riley sighed. "I'm just saying, next time you're feeling generous, _you_ can pay for the pizza."

"Done."


End file.
